Unemployment On the Rise

Gallup reports 0.5 percent increase in February

Unemployment rose by half a percentage point during the month of February, Gallup reports.

Gallup finds U.S. unemployment, as measured without seasonal adjustment, to be 9.1% in February, based on almost 30,000 interviews with a random sample of Americans. When Gallup applies the 0.5-percentage-point seasonal adjustment that the government applied to its unadjusted data for February last year, it produces an adjusted unemployment rate for February 2012 of 8.6% — a substantial increase from the 8.3% adjusted rate the government reported for January…

Gallup reported an unadjusted rate of 8.6% for January 2012 and the government reported an unadjusted rate of 8.8%. Gallup’s and the government’s unadjusted results also tracked closely in January 2011 (9.9% versus 9.8%, respectively) and January 2010 (10.9% compared with 10.6%)…

If we assume the government’s unadjusted unemployment rate experienced a similar 0.5-point increase, it would rise to 9.3% in February from January’s 8.8%. Applying the 0.5-point seasonal adjustment (based on the government’s February 2011 adjustment) to the February 2012 unadjusted rate (9.3%) would result in an increase in the U.S. seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to 8.8% in February 2012 from January’s 8.3%.